Familiarity

Photo by Vivian Chambers

Change will follow us wherever we go, open your mind and allow it to roam, they say.Of course, we ought to accept change as it comes,I tell myself.

That night I go home and wallow in tears because it's the first day of school. No matter how kind the teachers seem, and no matter how joyful I am to finally see my friends; the layer of familiarity that lasted the Summer was a thread coming undone, and I with it

I’ve cried every first day of school, it has become a tradition of sorts.
Life is a cycle of change, we must keep an open mind to allow for prosperity, they say. Of course, who doesn't? I tell myself.

That night I spend on my bed, a ukulele in hand and Youtube tutorials playing on my laptop. I had begged my parents for months to buy me one, and when that didn’t work, I went ahead and bought my own. I played it for a few weeks, and it isn’t as easy as they made it seem to be. I have to put in work and I’ve become too used to spending my evenings reading or watching movies, so I set it aside for good. I’ve never really known how to play an instrument anyway, it wasn’t like anything was changing.

Change is inevitable, we must learn to live with it, they say. I roll my eyes, of course, that’s common sense, I tell myself.

That night, I don’t have any assignments to stress about to distract me from the silence. Feeling neither happy nor sad, as if a weight has been lifted, but the weight has been there for far too long that I don’t know what to do without it. I’m so used to my unchanged emotions, that vary from sad to sadder. So, I remind myself of my never-ending list of insecurities and let the tears shed. At least I know what that’s supposed to feel like.

I guess my tears often follow me to my bed because it is the only time I have nothing but my head to distract me and I guess I don’t know how to be anything without noise, without music on repeat, without Ashley giving me a Youtube tutorial on her Hot Girl Summer makeup look. It's not about the fact that I’ll worry when the silence echoes in my head, it's about the fact that I don't know what to do when there is no noise to abide by, and that feeling is too foreign. That feeling needs getting used to.

I always fall into the comforting blanket of familiarity. It’s arms too welcoming and kind to be evil. I preach about accepting change, write essays on it, and put it on post-it notes on my mirror,I’m a liar.

Just like not knowing how to play an instrument was familiar, I was too used to the looming sadness, and pity parties. Just like change was unfamiliar, so was silence.

I’m not happy, because I’m sad. I’m sad because I do not want to deal with feelings I do not know. Happiness is harder to make yourself believe, sadness on the other hand is as easy as flipping your pillow to the other side.

I’m trying to unlearn my habit of easing into sorrow at the end of the day only for the familiarity of self-pity and tears.

I’m trying to unlearn the warmth of familiarity. Let the unfamiliar swallow me whole so I can for once write some cringey, happy, notes app poetry.

Realizing your issues is the first step, I guess I kind of know what comes next, but I’m scared. I hope when I read this again, I find myself sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes in between but I hope I’m okay.